A breakthrough moment which marked the time from which I began to be exceptionally pessimistic and began to see the future very bleakly came with the meeting in Szczecin. Not many people remember that after everything which was said at the meeting in Szczecin, things that were unpleasant and frightening, though this in itself was not all that alarming, not long after this some publications exhibited changes tending in that direction, and in many cultural institutions very obvious changes began to occur which went further than anyone could have expected based on what had been said at the meeting. That's when I committed to memory a short conversation I had with Edward Czato when I started to work with him on Nowiny Literackie the chief editor of which was Iwaszkiewicz, although I didn't have much contact with Iwaszkiewicz there, I had more to do with other members of the editorial team, one of whom was Edward Czato who was associated with the PPS [Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (Polish Socialist Party)] and with whom I got on quite easily, even though by then people were already beginning to be afraid of one another. And although we didn't know each other well enough for it to be obvious that he would say this to me, this is what he said: ‘Mr Janek, this is finis Polonia’. I was alarmed and thought to myself that Czato, being a bit older than me, was therefore more experienced, more involved in political activity, so if he was saying this, there has to be something in it. It corresponded very closely with what I was seeing myself.

Jan Józef Lipski (1926-1991) was one of Poland's best known political activists. He was also a writer and a literary critic. As a soldier in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1976, following worker protests, he co-founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). His active opposition to Poland's communist authorities led to his arrest and imprisonment on several occasions. In 1987, he re-established and headed the Polish Socialist Party. Two years later, he was elected to the Polish Senate. He died in 1991 while still in office. For his significant work, Lipski was honoured with the Cross of the Valorous (Krzyż Walecznych), posthumously with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1991) and with the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle (2006).

Film director Marcel Łoziński was born in Paris in 1940. He graduated from the Film Directing Department of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1971. In 1994, he was nominated for an American Academy Award and a European Film Academy Award for the documentary, 89 mm from Europe. Since 1995, he has been a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Science awarding Oscars. He lectured at the FEMIS film school and the School of Polish Culture of Warsaw University. He ran documentary film workshops in Marseilles. Marcel Łoziński currently lectures at Andrzej Wajda’s Master School for Film Directors. He also runs the Dragon Forum, a European documentary film workshop.

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.